Self-assembled guanosine and peptide based hydrogels: relevant applications

Abstract

The ever-increasing demands of the biomaterials in various biomedical applications have led the researchers to develop new biomolecules based low molecular weight hydrogels (LMWH). The biomolecules derived multifunctional LMWHs offer bioactivity, stimuli-responsive nature, cost effective and most importantly biocompatibility and hence they are extensively used in drug delivery, tissue engineering, 3D bioprinting and many others biomedical applications. Now, owing to the importance of nucleosides and peptides, I have discussed and utilized them in my thesis to prepare supramolecular hydrogels with distinct features and wide range of applications. Guanosine (G) is one of the most important building blocks among four natural nucleosides and it has been extensively used to develop various self-assembled structures with ubiquitous properties. Generally, G forms G-quadruplex like self-assembled structures that are stabilized by central metal ions especially by K+. The dynamic boronate esters mediated low molecular weight G-quadruplex hydrogels possess dynamic, thixotropic, injectable and self-healable nature. These unique features of G-based hydrogels motivate me to use them in different applications including drug delivery, antibacterial and catalysis. The demand of self-assembling peptides has increased in the field of regenerative medicine. Among different self-assembling peptides, the aromatic capped N-terminal modified short peptide hydrogels are widely used as functional soft biomaterials for different biomedical applications. Hence, the designing of peptide hydrogels with appropriate aromatic N terminal protecting groups could be an interesting field of research for developing new peptide hydrogels for biomedical purposes.